Although there may be more than one link between osteoporosis and colon cancer, the newest association is that CT Colonography can screen for both diseases at the same time. From the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) 2008 conference a study presented by lead author Rizwan Aslam, M.B.Ch.B., assistant clinical professor of radiology at the University of California San Francisco, describes how a data set obtained for CT Colonography can be analyzed (by a different software reconstruction program) to evaluate bone density of the spine. And it turns out the results are very comparable to dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) scores.
From the press release:

In the study conducted at the San Francisco Veterans Administration Hospital, the researchers evaluated the results of 35 patients who underwent CT colonography and bone mineral density testing with dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DEXA), a standard bone density screening tool. Patients included 30 males and five females ranging in age from 54 to 79.
The results of the study showed excellent agreement between the DEXA bone mineral density scores and the data generated through the CT colonography study. “The bone density measurements obtained from CT colonography were comparable to the DEXA results,” Dr. Aslam said. “Both tests identified osteoporotic bones.”
Most physicians recommend that adults undergo CT colonography or conventional colonoscopy every seven to 10 years beginning at age 50. “CT colonography isn’t a replacement for DEXA testing, but it could be a way to screen more people for osteoporosis,” Dr. Aslam said. “When an individual undergoes CT colonography, we can also obtain a bone density measurement with no additional radiation and at minimal cost.”
According to the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, 10 million Americans over age 50 have osteoporosis. Approximately 34 million Americans are at risk due to low bone mass. Detecting osteoporosis early provides for early intervention and treatment.

RSNA press release: CT Colonography Offers One-Stop Screening for Cancer and Osteoporosis (From All press releases RSNA 2008) (Page 3)

A multidisciplinary group of researchers created a new methodology that can identify the effectiveness of vaccine immunity, based on a genetic makeup of a person receiving the vaccine. The research was conducted by scientists from the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory Vaccine Center at Emory University, the Center for Operations Research in Medicine and Healthcare at Georgia Tech, and the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle.
From a Georgia Tech press release:

The researchers used YF-17D [yellow fever vaccine YF-17D was a model in the research --ed.], to predict the body’s ability shortly after immunization to stimulate a strong and enduring immunity. Researchers vaccinated 15 healthy individuals with YF-17D and studied the T cell and antibody responses in their blood. There was a striking variation in these responses between individuals. Analysis of gene expression patterns in white blood cells revealed in the majority of the individuals the vaccine induced a network of genes involved in the early innate immune response against viruses.
A major challenge in the study involved the identification of discriminatory gene signatures—among over 50,000 genes—that can predict the responses of T cells and antibodies. Lee has developed powerful modeling, computational feature selection and predictive tools that overcome shortcomings of existing techniques, which often have limited ability to handle data sets involving heterogeneous, large-scale, ill-separated and mixed biological and medical data. Her approach offers a very robust classification framework that effectively handles such data sets and derives a classifier that often provides higher prediction accuracy and lower misclassification errors than classifiers derived from other methods.
"Using such a bioinformatics approach, we were able to identify distinct gene signatures that correlated with the T cell response and the antibody response induced by the vaccine,” says Pulendran. “To determine whether these gene signatures could predict immune response, we vaccinated a second group of individuals and were able to predict with up to 90 percent accuracy which of the vaccinated individuals would develop a strong T or B cell immunity to yellow fever,” continues Pulendran.

Press release: Researchers discover strategy for predicting the immunity of vaccines…

Last Wednesday, the United Nations held its annual International Day of Persons with Disabilities. The event was headlined by Rudely Interrupted, an Australian band of misfits sporting disabilities like blindness, deafness(!), Asperger and Down syndromes, and autism. Surprisingly, the combination can do wonders for music, and Red Eye, the late night Fox News comedy show, sent their own dysfunctional reporter to speak to the band.

And here’s a music video for the band’s song Don’t Break My Heart:

Rudely Interrupted homepage…